I am most fortunate to have great birding sites close to my new home near Worcester. Within walking distance we have a good, at least by current standards, breeding population of Nightingales which will hopefully be enchanting me with their sweet song again in late April. The beautiful Wyre forest is also only some 25 miles from me and, god willing, I will be watching Pied Flycatchers, Wood Warblers and Redstarts again there in the Spring.
The Wyre forest holds another attraction at this time of year as February is the best time to see the diminutive and increasingly scarce Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. This is a bird which is sadly in great trouble in the UK. The population of this small Woodpecker is estimated to have fallen by 83% since 1970, with no more than 2,000 pairs thought to be left in the UK. The ongoing loss of ancient and mature woodland and the removal of dead and rotting wood is thought to be a key factor in this decline. The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker may also have been affected by the growing Great Spotted Woodpecker population driven in part by the plentiful winter food supply available for it at our garden feeders. The Great Spotted Woodpecker is also a fearsome predator of other nesting woodland birds, quite capable to enlarging a nesting hole to get at the chicks inside.
The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is the smallest of the three woodpeckers that are resident in Britain. It is similar in size to a Sparrow and weighs just 20 grams compared to the 85 grams of its greater cousin. The male is distinguished from the female by his bright red crown.
Once the leaves are on the trees they are nigh on impossible to spot. In February as the breeding season approaches they start to drum and call. My experience is that, in particular, the drumming sound is the only way to locate them and it is hence important to be able to distinguish the drumming from that of its larger cousin. To me at least the drumming of the Lesser is more pleasing to the ears being softer and warmer and less mechanical than their greater cousin. It is also much quieter and carries less far indicating that a drumming bird is close by if you hear it.
It is important to be on site early as they tend to drum and call most just after dawn. I hence was the only one present as I drove into the small forest car park just before dawn on Thursday. I was immediately greeted by the sound of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker drumming close by providing a good reference point for the softer drumming I was looking for. I was armed with some location information from a friendly local birder and made my way to a known territory as the sun was rising in a clear late winter sky. Almost immediately I heard the distinctive soft drumming close by and I soon located the tiny male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drumming away on a dead tree. After a few minutes it moved on to another part of its territory flying overhead giving me a clear appreciation of how tiny this finch sized bird really is. It soon came back and continued its drumming on another dead nearby tree. These were clearly its favourite two tress, I guess they were perfect trees for drumming and getting the attention of a mate, as it repeatedly returned to them. Come 09:00 he again flew off overhead and, although I waited for another hour, that seemed to be the end of his morning performance. I spent another hour or so walking around the forest familiarising myself with its many paths but I never heard another LSW.
With my main birding objective achieved for the day, I decided to drive down the M5 for another go at the Baikal Teal at Greylakes RSPB. After a stop for lunch I arrived around 14:00 to be told that the Baikal had been showing well but had now moved into cover where it was fast asleep which, by all accounts , it seems to spend most of its day doing. Exotic wildfowl such as the Baikal are often kept in collections making the provenance of any seemly wild bird challenging such that the BOU have just 7 accepted records of the Baikal Teal in the UK. As a scientist I have commented before on the lack of objectivity the BOU seem to apply to their acceptance criteria. This is a complete mystery to me as the process for acceptance must lend itself to an objective set of logical criteria around necessary and necessary but not sufficient markers to accept a wild bird. The fact that there are currently two Baikal’s in the UK may help to get the Greylakes bird accepted.
The Baikal Teal breeds in eastern Russia and migrates to eastern Asia for the winter. The adult male is unmistakable, with a striking green nape, yellow and black neck and throat.
I watched the bird through my scope and it would occasionally wake from its slumbers and raise its head to check for threats giving a clear view of its stunning head ware. The reserve is absolutely teaming with overwintering Eurasian Teal, Pintail, Shoveler and Widgeon and is hence a predator magnet. With a Peregrine and two Marsh harriers flying around it was only a matter of time before everything was flushed and, sure enough, a Peregrine pass put everything up and although all present continued to search we could not relocate the Baikal Teal.
The only photo I manged to get was this candidate for worst photo of the year. The Baikal’s head is the green blob in the sedge!
Here is a somewhat better photo I took of one a few years ago.
Come 16:00 I made my way home via our favourite fish and chip shop to collect dinner for Carolyn and me accompanied by the smug feeling of main mission accomplished by means of the great morning views of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.
Footnote – my blogs are posted with sometimes rather imaginative spelling and grammar due to my extreme dyslexia!
Nice one. I've yet to see a LSW :-(
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